


History Has Its Eyes On You

by westandvigilant



Series: until the Earth is free [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westandvigilant/pseuds/westandvigilant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elin is in over her head. Cullen knows the feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am absolutely here for Inquisitors who have no clue what they're doing and are absolutely scared out of their minds.
> 
> The last chapter is a repost/edit of a fic I had previously posted under a name I do not remember.

_i._

He called out her name and she did not answer.

It wasn't until he yelled it again and her only response was to turn and blink that he realized he wasn't actually calling her name.

Perhaps Cullen could have assumed that Elin simply did not notice him, considering the fact that she was clearly practicing her spellcasting with the newly recruited mages. Both Leliana and Josephine had noted, however, that on several occasions the Lady Trevelyan neglected to answer to the title of "Herald" when called. The women had decided that Elin likely forgot that "Herald" referred to her. Cullen, for his part, had not noticed this. Probably because he was more likely to repeat something until it rendered the desired result.

Either way, this all seemed unlikely. Elin was practicing spellcasting, yes, but the group of mages were silent. They watched quietly to let her concentrate on the pull of her mana and crackling of her staff. The only sound he heard was the static sizzling around her.

Thus, Cullen got the distinct feeling that he was being ignored. Something that struck Cullen as incredibly out of character for her.

She shouldered her staff as he approached, quickly wiping her hands off on her breeches. The other mages followed suit, most deigning to give Cullen a solemn nod when he passed. Cullen did his best to even out his breathing and ignore the hairs prickling at the nape of his neck.

"Herald," he repeated, "do you have a moment?"

"Of course, Commander," she smiled, face flush with effort. "What can I help you with?"

Cullen folded his hands over the hilt of his sword. This conversation would best happen in private. He cleared his throat and sent Elin a pointed gaze which, luckily, she seemed to understand.

"Would you all kindly give the Commander and I a moment?" she asked, her smile growing tight lipped. Cullen's eyes flicked to the ground, counting the boots crunching through the snow until he and Elin were alone. 

When he looked up, her gaze had already dropped to her feet. The Inquisition issued battlemage robes swallowed her, slipping off a thin, freckled shoulder. She looked small, apprehensive. Like a mage about to be reprimanded.

"The meeting-"

"I'm sorry."

"We need to discuss-"

"The Breach, I know. I just feel very..." Elin let a word mull on her tongue, her head tilting to the left as she brought her eyes off the ground, "I feel quite inadequate. I spent most of my time at the Circle studying history. We were never encouraged to learn offensive spells."

And what could Cullen say? What could he say when she looked at him with those blue, despondent eyes? The Inquisition had already asked her for so many things, the least they could do was give her some time to prepare before fighting the Breach. A fight that, for all he knew, could cost her life.

He mumbled a few words of support and left the Herald to her practice.

_ii._

Elin stood in the doorway of her cabin. She was tall, only about three or so inches shorter than Cullen, but slight. He could still clearly see the dusty fire warm room behind her, the sparse conditions visible behind her slender form. She greeted him with a smile, like always, despite their brusque last parting.

But there was something new. Her lithe body was now clad in a new traveling jacket. It was tailored, buckled at the waist, and opened to reveal a shiny new breastplate. It was plain, but sturdy. Harrit's handiwork was all over it.

Something that felt terribly similar to pride swelled in Cullen's chest. His thoughts scattered.

"Herald," he greeted. Her only response was to flinch before they stood in silence for just a little too long. He inclined his head toward her. "New armor?" A stupid question, he later decided.

"Yes," she breathed with an unsure tilt of her eyebrows. With a flighty hand, almost involuntary, she reached up to fidget with the buckles that resided under the newly pressed leather. "It's heavy."

Cullen hummed a response before shaking his head to remember why he had stopped by Elin's cabin in the first place. He'd never been inside, though he often wondered what she did in there. How she spent her off time. What she thought about. This, strangely, did not help him find his purpose.

"I apologize for leaving the War Table meeting so, um, abruptly." She found his train of thought for him. "I had to meet Harrit-"

"He could have waited," Cullen simmered.

Her smile flickered with nervousness and she fidgeted with her coat again. "I know, I know," she quickly agreed. She shifted her weight from one foot to the next. "I just worry that the mages aren't ready."

"The mages aren't ready." Cullen repeated the phrase in deadpan, not too fondly recalling Elin's brash decision to call on the mages after having set out for Therinfal Redoubt. 

"I just mean that- Well, I don't think they're prepared for the structure you're requiring of them. We both know that Circle Mages aren't exactly soldiers by any stretch of the imagination."

Cullen opened his mouth to reply, but was not given the chance. "Now, I'm very sorry to cut this short, Commander," Elin said, already backing into the cabin. "I do apologize, but I really do need to figure out how to get this armor off."

The door slammed in his face and he had to deal with the fact that he now knew exactly what she was doing in her cabin.

_iii._

Cullen had decided that he was not the Herald's keeper. _Not my_   _charge_ had been the exact words he'd used when he told Leliana and Josephine that he wouldn't be chasing the _mage_ down after she skipped another War Table meeting. Then they all ignored the casual redness that crawled up his neck while he ignored the ringing in his ears. He apologized for his attitude later, but did not offer to go find her.

Luckily for everyone involved she left a note. A nicely written note with outstanding penmanship and a lovely signature that was dropped on Josephine's desk while the advisers sat in their closed door meeting. A carefully worded note where the Herald explained how she was leaving for the Hinterlands with a few companions to check in on the refugees and become more accustomed to her new armor.

"Well," Leliana mused, "she'll have to run out of excuses eventually."


	2. Chapter 2

_iv._

It had to be near dawn. It had to be. The full moon had sunk snugly into the mountains behind them and a pink haze had lifted just above the tree line.

It had to be near dawn, and that fact should have made it perfectly clear to anyone why Cullen was absolutely incensed to be trudging around outside looking for a blasted iron ore vein. But he was just simply fed up with Quartermaster Threnn and it had nothing to do with her politics and everything to do with the fact that she never left Haven. How could she be in charge of requisitions if she never left to go find anything?

He hadn’t been aware of the time when he finally reached Threnn’s report. It had been at the bottom of a nearly insurmountable stack of much more pressing matters. Well, pressing for him. The fact that half of his recruits didn’t have proper swords was more than pressing, it was unacceptable, as far as he was concerned.

But it should pressing for her, as far as he was concerned. So long as she’d do her fucking job.

She was not, however, doing her fucking job. They had been arguing via messenger for the better part of a week. The letter she had someone slip onto his desk outlined in tiny, matter-of-fact handwriting that if he wanted the swords he’d have to wait for someone to bring in some ore. He had roared halfway up to her tent before realizing that everyone in Haven was sleeping. Something of which he did very little.

So, that was why Cullen was prowling the dawn soaked outskirts of Haven in full plate armor in search of iron.

The watch towers were dark, which made his impromptu expedition just slightly more difficult and annoying. Still, a twinge of relief swelled in his chest when he remembered what that sign meant. It meant that the Herald and her party had made it in from the Hinterlands at some point during the night, most likely while he was wading through reports. She had traveled to the Hinterlands, yet again, to test out her armor or practice her spells or hunt wild goat or whatever new excuse she had found to put off attacking the Breach. The woman - no, girl, he reminded himself, a twenty-three year old girl - infuriated him to end, but he was always allayed at her return.

Cullen didn’t like thinking about why he was always so relieved when she was safe in her bed. He wanted to believe that it had to do with the younger siblings he hoped were safe at home in their beds. A terrified part of him thought maybe he liked knowing the mage was in her quarters at the end of the night. And still another part of him began to think about the full curve of her lips in the moonlight and the tongue hiding behind them and why that was important was completely beyond him. Trying to walk through the snow certainly seemed like a more pressing matter to Cullen as of that moment.

That is, until his boot caught some scrap of cloth and sent him flying forward.

It wasn’t hard for him to catch his balance. Years of combat training had taught him the importance of knowing where the hips are in relation to feet. About knowing drawing back the shoulder and righting his weight. His hand went instinctively to the hilt of his sword, eyes sweeping the area around him.

Content that there were no enemies trying to trip the Commander of the Inquisition, Cullen looked down at the pile of leather at his feet. He kicked at it, unraveling it to reveal a blood flecked traveling jacket.

Lady Trevelyan’s jacket. The one she wore over her breastplate. The breastplate glittering in the snow about three feet away.

“Elin,” he whispered without thinking. "Elin?" He asked louder, breath turning crystal in the quiet morning air. The next time it was a yell. Then a bellow. Each time he called her name it became louder and louder, boiling into a barely contained scream as he discovered piece after piece of her armor littering the snow. He tore through the trail with only the thundering beat of his heart to keep him company.

And then there she was, not ten feet away, her small form flattened to a rock on the edge of the scant forest. A faint green light illuminated her against the black of the lake. He barely registered it at first, feet flying forward before his brain really knew what it was doing. But that seemed to happen to Cullen a lot around her. Blood rushed to his ears as he ran towards her, crashing to his knees next to her back.

“Oh, Maker please,” he pleaded as he grabbed her stilled body. It only seemed natural to turn her towards his own self, to cradle her in his lap.

“Elin, please...”

Her eyes were open the entire time, blue and unseeing. His mind felt numb. After a heart stopping moment, she blinked and he could breathe again.

She stared at him in utter silence, still unmoving, her skin pale and chilled in the cold morning sun.

“Elin,” he attempted again, “are you hurt?”

She shook her head to assure him that no, she wasn’t hurt, slowly turning her gaze away from him and out towards the frozen lake. He wasn't sure if that answer was a relief or not. It became painfully apparent to Cullen that she had been cleaned up in some sort of slapdash way; only a red stain under her nostril and a crust of blood on her lip remained of whatever had happened. A tear slid from her eye and down the aristocratic line of her nose.

Deciding whatever was going on here wasn’t a part of his expertise - what did Cullen Rutherford know comforting young women? - he licked his lips and cleared his throat. “H-Herald-”

“No!” The yell took him by surprise. Her face was full upon him and her teeth bared. Her fingers were buried in his collar, pulling him closer, even though she had scurried from his lap and was now sitting in front of him “Don’t you call me that! I’m sick of being called that I can’t-” She broke off into horrific sob.

Her grip falling away, her head now bowed between them, the Herald of Andraste cried. Her thin shoulders shook, newly built muscle and scar tissue gliding under sunburned skin. An instinct creaked loose in his joints and he closed his hands around her arms in an attempt at comfort. Before he could see how she reacted to his touch, the coldness of her skin crept straight through his gloves.

“Damn,” he cursed softly. “You must be freezing.” He bodily set her back on her heels, an order that she followed with no protest. His fingers flew over the ties of his overcoat, hefting the heavy fur off with as much haste as he could. Cullen tossed it over her body. It was far too large for her. He wrapped the extra fabric around her as many times as possible, practically swaddling the near catatonic woman.

"I can’t handle this,” she finally said.

“Of course you can, you’re doing wonderful...” he paused to choose his words before deciding to finish with a stead-fast “Lady Trevelyan.”

“I made a mistake today.”

“We all make mistakes.” Flurries had begun to fall in the dusky pink of the burgeoning day. “We’re all doing the best-”

Elin fell forward with another sob. “No, you don’t understand,” she choked out. “You chose to be here. Even on your worst days, what you consider your worst day, you’re helping. You know how to help. I don’t. I have no clue. I...” The words died on her tongue. Cullen watched helplessly as she unknowingly chewed the scab from her lip.

She took another deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “I killed three mages today. While I ignored the Breach.” Her voice trembled as she continued. “They were summoning demons on a hamlet out in the Hinterland and I tried to tell them that the people were friendly and they set a house on fire in front of me. So I killed them. I could have brought them in to the authorities, but I didn’t. I couldn’t help but think, this is it. This is exactly why people hate mages. This is why the Templars-" Elin broke off with another sigh.

"So I fried them...” She hid her face in her hands. “I can still smell their hair burning.”

Her words were so frank, he barely knew how to reply. Or course he knew that she did what she had to do, but he was somehow completely unsure of how to tell her. It was easier when he had to tell eager recruits the perils of battle, he could practically recite all the accepted coping mechanisms like a tome. As convincing as it was, he was always lying in some way. What did Cullen Rutherford know about being a well-adjusted human being? Nothing. He decided to hang it all and tell her the truth. It was the only thing she deserved, really.

“Some people are simply beyond help,” Cullen said. And he meant it. He meant it to his bones.

It was the hurt that flashed in her wet eyes that made him wish he didn’t. Snowflakes tangled in her eyelashes. Maker, she looked so young.

“How are we saving Thedas if we are killing its people?” Her eyes were big and blue and upon him, begging him for an absolution he had never known himself.

“It’s a choice we have to make, for they’ve already made theirs.”

For the first time in a while, Cullen felt like he had done something evil. There was a typical feeling of hatred he carried with his past, but he had made himself a promise that those days were behind him. And yet here he was, telling a woman - _no, a girl_ \- that killing mages - _no, human beings_ \- will be common place for her life.

“That makes sense,” she murmured, but he still felt like a monster. A shaky sigh rattled her chest. "I'm scared," she sniffed. "I'm scared of doing the wrong things."

He didn't want to bring it up. He knew that she knew, in some respects, about his time at the Gallows. Famous wasn't exactly the right word for Cullen Rutherford's name in the wake of the Mage Rebellion, but he needed to help her. He needed to show her that she wasn't alone.

"Lady Trevelyan-" He started.

What he wasn’t prepared was for her to look at him with red rimmed eyes and say: “Elin, please call me Elin. It makes me feel real.”

And, Andraste above, how could he not grant that request.

"Elin," her name felt too soft, too delicate for his scarred lips, "I know you know who I am. But, Maker, I was so young." He laughed, more of surprised snort, and shook his head before looking at her tired eyes. "Well, I guess I was your age at Calenhad... But I look back at myself, a few years ago when I took control at Kirkwall and I can't believe what I didn't know."

"The Gallows, you mean?"

He sighed. "Yes. The Gallows. People were looking at me to answer everything, to know everything, to  _save_ everything, like my world hadn't been turned upside down as well. I made so many mistakes..."

Cullen trailed off again, lost in his own thoughts. Elin, too, retreated into her memories, no doubt recounting her perceived mistakes as she stared at her lap. 

"I-I'm sorry, Elin, I'm not terribly..." Cullen cleared his throat. "I'm not good at this type of thing, but you have no control over what happens to you and you have no control of how history will remember you. All you can do is make choices that you can live with. And remember that you are not alone, like I was. I will-  _We_ will be there for you, every step of the way."

Her tears had grown quiet, silent save for a few sniffles. Her brow creased with effort and he followed her gaze down to the hands in her lap. She massaged the palm of her left hand, the mark glittering green under the attention. The spare scrap of fabric she usually kept wound around her hand was nowhere to be seen.

“It hurts,” she hiccuped, flexing frost tinged fingers. And Cullen cursed himself once more.

He could do nothing for the mark, he knew. Deep down, he knew at least that was true, even if it was killing him at that moment. That was something the Maker had seen fit to give her. Cullen was left with no choice but to believe that she was meant to take it, that she could shoulder that burden, no matter how unfair.

But the cold, that he could do something about that.

Skin on skin. That’s what she needed. He put the soft leather fingertip of his glove between his teeth and pulled it off his hand with a tug, completely unaware of the enraptured way she watched his every move. While he repeated the process with his other glove, he took her chilled hands in his own. She shuddered at the touch, so he waited for her to accept it. With a soft hum escaping her lips, Elin’s fingers curled into his palm, hungry for the warmth it provided.

He took to rubbing her hands. Carefully. Worrying at her fingertips, sweeping the calloused pads of this thumbs across her knuckles. He brought them up to his lips and breathed into them. Some desire inside him urged to pull her closer. To touch her cheek.

When he looked up at her, he thought she might be blushing. His heart gave another sort of twinge and his brain quickly reminded him that she was freezing to death. He was seeing a flush of warmth returning to her skin.

It didn’t stop him from becoming painfully aware of their contact.

No, it was only the beginning of that.

 


End file.
